Google’s January decision to lower the page rank of google.com/chrome for at least two months in the wake of a promotion controversy resulted in the browser losing some market share to Internet Explorer last month.

“In January, the upward trend for Chrome halted and Chrome lost 0.17 percent share on the desktop,” according to data from Net Applications. “Internet Explorer gained 1.1 percent and Firefox dropped 1 percent.”

Earlier this year, a blogger with SEO Book suggested that Google was possibly in violation of its own search-ranking policies with an effort that rewarded bloggers who wrote about the benefits of the Chrome browser. Google denied any malicious intent, but demoted its page rank as a precautionary measure.

That helped IE land at 52.8 percent of the market on the desktop, followed by Firefox at 20.9 percent, and Chrome at 18.9 percent. Of that, 91.9 percent were on Windows-based devices, 6.9 percent were using Macs, and 1.2 percent were on Linux, Net Applications said.

In a blog post, Microsoft broke out the gains that IE9 made on Windows 7. “In line with recent months, we’re pleased to report that IE9 growth on Windows 7 continues, passing 30 percent worldwide as of the end of February,” wrote Roger Capriotti, director of IE marketing. “The data is particularly encouraging for users and developers in the U.S. where IE9 is over 40 percent usage share at the end February.”

Net Applications, meanwhile, also broke out browser usage stats for tablets and mobile devices in February. Not suprisingly, Apple’s Safari – in use on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch – had 61.2 percent of the market. Android landed at number two with 18.6 percent, Opera Mini had 14.4 percent, and Symbian had 1.5 percent.

“The Galaxy Tab and Kindle Fire are not close to matching the iPad’s usage share, but are growing,” Net Applications said in a statement. “The Galaxy Tab is at 0.42 percent mobile/tablet usage share and the Kindle Fire stands at 0.34 percent mobile/tablet usage share. The iPad maintains it lead in tablets at 23.97 percent mobile/table usage share.”